The following essay was commissioned by Young Lung’s Dance Exchange for their 2021 Research Series. I worked with two groups of artists who were dancing as research.

Reflection, 2am, 1 August 2026:

This piece was excruciating to write, and I do not really understand why except that I had so much unhealed trauma that was brought up by the process of having to present this live to the public via zoom. My fear was heightened because there were going to be people in attendance who I sensed would not be perceiving me from a place of good faith, as they had showed commitment to misunderstanding me in the past. I doubted my abilities to complete the task, as if there was something fundamentally wrong with me that would be revealed through it (I felt people wanting me to fail) and then I proceeded to be a self-fulfilling prophecy by doing it in an absolute haze of lunacy. This process was a steep learning curve I had to go through and could not run away from.

For a long time, like with most my writing, especially that which has come through me in fits of fear and shame, I felt mortified by this piece and didn’t re-read it for years. But it’s not so bad. And I like how all my writing pieces fit together… the thread is often about me perceiving some trap and some survival and developing some escape. I wrote this piece in one sitting, while bawling my eyes out crying on a full moon the morning it was due to be presented live on zoom to zee public + my collaborators. I did not feel comfortable at all with the scenario. I got very drunk for the presentation… then never re-read it again once it was over… but anyway, here it is. I can’t quite recall if I was drunk when I wrote it or just when I presented… but anywho, I am sober from alcohol now, yay, and brave enough to re-read my shit and notice the threads, and write and edit more.